On

By Ryan St, Stephanie Lauren, Charles Ferguson and Rob Harper.

Hush, damn your reckless tongue. Follow but don't look like it.

Ah, now, we speak. Yes that's running water you hear all about us, the sea tide full of salt. Those are star tears you see embedded in the clay here too. A fortune if dug up yes, but then it would not be nearly so secure a place for conversation.

Now, show me that again. Yes, it bears On's markings. Iron made its true self, steel. On-steel the most precious. Rust shall never touch it. A blade of it would pierce half the protections the mightiest wizard wove as if they were smoke. What does this thing do? A Voice to tell you the knowledge of the ages? An Eye through which to see truths that make a lie of what we hold absolute? No, not this trinket. This simply shows the might and power of On, that is what. Here, turn that, keep turning, again, again, now let it go. A pretty little tune isn't it. The orb will float for at least half an hour playing that tune before it floats to the ground. That's right, a toy. Something for a child, worth the price of a thousand children. Whoever they were, whatever they wanted, whatever their doom, the people of On used arts in their toys that would make any who now mastered them Emperor of the World. How does if fly? How can iron be made steel and timeless and so shaped? How can a living voice or music emanate from a lifeless thing? Only On Knew, how true those oft-uttered words.

The trick in profiting on such things is to determine which the Inheritors ignore and which they consider their own property, and you a thief for holding it. A dim view of thieves, have the Inheritors, and a knack for knowing when their property is about. You were wise to seek me out. Understand, if I determined this could be sold safely, I would have earned my quarter commission.

In this case, I would bury that deep. Better it was a blade or tool, the Inheritors don't care about such. But something like that, speaking of culture, of the manner of thinking and living of Lost On, Forgotten On, that the Inheritors crave. To know themselves, this is their quest. For that little tune, created to amuse a child long dust, they would slaughter as many as stood in their way.

Sell it to them? How long were you in that desert sun? Inheritors do not trade nor barter nor buy nor sell. They give and they take. Show it to them, they will take it. They will ask where you found it, if there were other things there, and if they doubt your answer they will ask again, in manners that will leave little of your mind intact.